Making Indonesia Competitive in Tourism

Indonesia Becoming More Competitive in Tourism, But Still Lags in Comparison to Near Neighbors

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(2/14/2014)

The 2013 edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has placed Indonesia in 70th place among all nations in terms of tourism competitiveness.

This ranking has seen Indonesian advance four places from its ranking in 2012.

Indonesian Minister of Tourism and the Creative Economy, Mari Elka Pangestu, revealed the latest WEF rankings during a recent televised talk show. The Minister lamented that while Indonesia had managed to improve its position by four places to #70, the Republic still compared poorly to its near neighbors of Singapore (#10), Malaysia (#34) and Thailand (#43).

"Indonesia excels in the areas of natural resources (ranked #6) and value-for-money (ranked #9)," said Pangestu.

The Minister was pleased that Indonesian arrivals improved 9.42% in 2013 with a total of 8.8 million foreign visitors. This total number of Indonesian tourists is credited with generating US$10.5 billion in foreign exchange earnings, an improvement of 10.32% over 2012.

Domestically the Minister counts 248 million domestic trips undertaken in 2013 spending Rp. 154.7 trillion, a total almost twice the value of foreign tourists.

Tourism as a whole represents Rp. 347.35 trillion in value or 3.8% of Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product. At the same time, the national tourism sector creates 10.8 million jobs or 8.89% of the national work force.